Serengeti is spectacular but expensive. Very very expensive if you are going in as a tourist and you are not a Tanzanian citizen. We had our first shock at the entrance of what is known as the 'Ngorongoro Conservation Area'. The road to Serengeti goes by the Ngorongoro Crater and whether you actually drive into the crater or not, the charge for just using the road with a view of the crater was $50 for non-citizens and 1500 Tsh (equal to just about $1) for citizens. And this charge is just one-way. Which means that you may not even see the entrance to the park, but your pocket will be lighter by $100 by the time you turn around and drive back home. If you actually want to drive in the crater, that will be an additional $200. We had not budgeted for the 100$ road-use charge and were a bit shocked by it. But having come all the way up north, we were not going to let a $100 per person fee stop us. So we coughed up the amount. While we were paying the fees inside the office, outside MM was warding off some very aggressive Olive Baboons who wanted to get into our stuff and steal food from the back of our truck. The fact that everything was tied down tightly with a tarp did not discourage them. One particularly aggressive female baboon was already on the task of loosening the ropes. MM tried to scare it away with a stick, but it tried to fight him. But soon enough seeing that it was getting nowhere near the food, it left for greener pastures or vehicles if you will. So on we went towards the park after paying the fees. We stopped at a point mid-way where you could view the entire crater. The breathtaking view convinced us that the money we shelled out for using the road was worth it.
The road was unpaved and full of ruts and for the next 3 hours until we reached the entrance of Serengeti National Park, every bone of our body was subjected to constant jarring. Here, we had to shell out another $50 each per day per person to camp inside the park. Compared to the $20 rate in Ruaha National Park (which as researchers in Ruaha we don't have to pay) for a non-citizen tourist, this seemed extorbitant. But in many ways we were lucky, because I heard that the rates were hiked up to $100 per day just a month or so after we visited. Once inside the park, we had to drive a few more kilometers to reach the campsites and we happened to chance upon 2 cheetahs on top of an abandoned anthill bathed in the soft light of the setting sun, looking into the distance at all the different kinds of antelopes and deciding what dinner was going to be like. They had absolutely no problems with our vehicle just about 10 feet away. They just did not care. The animals in Serengeti are far more relaxed around humans than in Ruaha. Probably because there are so many more tourists in Serengeti and poachers are also a lesser menace in Serengeti.
By the time we reached the camp it was almost 7 pm and the sun had set. We went to 2 different campsites but neither of them had any water. So we ended up camping in another very crowded campsite which had water. I looked around and realised that we were the only people camping there by ourselves. Every one of the other tents belonged to Safari Companies. As we were unloading in the dark, a group of young park officials came by and demanded gruffly to see our permits and they were yelling at us for parking in the wrong place. Mzee, who is generally a patient man, had enough of their rudeness. He just walked to them and asked them what their problem was. He told them that as far as he knew they were not breaking any rules and he should know since he had worked in Serengeti as a park warden for so many years. As soon as they heard his name and designation, their demeanour changed completely. They were literally grovelling before him and apologising. As soon as they left, Mzee translated his conversation with them into English for me imitating their mannerisms and we all had a good laugh.
The Serengeti is more famous than its fellow national parks for a reason. It's spectacular grasslands ensure that you can see until the horizon in any direction you look and so you are absolutely ensured of seeing animals because they have no foliage to hide in. You could easily go to Ruaha and not see a single animal. But that will never happen at the Serengeti. We were lucky to see the start of the wilderbeest migration. Millions migrate as you have probably seen on National Geographic. Mzee tried imitating their call and some of them responded to him. This only encouraged me to try the call out and add it to my already expanding repertoire of animal calls used primarily to annoy/amuse (more annoy than amuse) my wife. The wilderbeest migration season is also their birthing season. Mzee says that the hyenas are called midwives because they will follow pregnant wilderbeest females and then pull the baby out of the mother just as they are being born. The poor babies never even see a single minute of life before they become a meal.
We almost saw a Cheetah hunt in the afternoon. Three Cheetahs on top of an anthill were surveying the land before them and they decided to go after a reedbuck. They split up and 2 of them covered the flanks and lay in wait amongst the reeds while the third one went directly to the reedbuck to chase it into the waiting jaws of the other two. But the reedbuck was smarter than them and it ran away before the cheetah could get near it and it ran in a direction away from the other two. The Cheetahs gave up and walked right between the tourist vehicles to rest under the shade of the only tree for miles.
We saw a bunch of lions as well in a couple of places. One lioness was resting alone and our truck was the only one near it. None of the other tourist vehicles had reached there yet. Of course, I wanted a picture with the lioness in the background and as I was posing on the back of the truck, Mzee asked me to get down from the vehicle and pose. I thought he was joking and laughed. But then I realised that he wasn't. The lioness was a good 50 metres away and it was a very hot afternoon. So the chances of it moving to do anything 'mischevious' were absolutely none. So I got down somewhat hesitantly and stood a few feet away from the truck with my back to the lioness. My instructions to my wife were, just say 'run' in case of danger and I will be in the back of the truck in a second. Thankfully like the majority of females I knew during my bachelor days, the lioness was also not interested.
We saw a bunch of other animals in the Serengeti and I won't bore you with the details but I wish MM and I had seen the baboons who stole our pineapple from our closed tin trunk near our tent. The trunk was locked on one side with the bolt on the other side not quite shutting down. Although it was quite difficult to get into the trunk through this side, the baboons got into it. By the time we came back, the area near the camp was a mess of trash, earbuds, Mzees' tobacco and pineapple rind and we were heartbroken. MM and I over the loss of the pineapple, Mzee over the spilt tobacco. I hope the baboons got acidity from eating too much pineapple in one go.
When we signed out of the park, we happended to glance at the vistors book. It was filled with ridiculous comments. About security, condition or roads etc. There were also comments reprimanding those who had complained. It was very much like the comments section of a youtube video. But seriously some of the complaints were quite amusing. One of the complaints was that there were no security guards in the camp. I wonder if the people know that they are actually going into a national park, which is just another way to describe a jungle. If they want security guards, they should just visit the airport and camp there. Another person complained about how much money they had to shell out to use the badly rutted unpaved road. Which I agreed to somewhat but at the same time I can understand why the authorities would not want to build a tarred road to go to Serengeti. If they did that, the number of tourists going there would get blown out of proportion and that would just be bad for the park, the animals, tourism and just about everyone involved.
We stayed overnight at Arusha once again and that evening my wife and RC planned to eat at an Italian restaurant, while Mzee and MM were planning to eat Tanzanian food. I decided to accompany Mzee and MM and let the ladies have their Italian food. As Mzee and MM and I were walking in search of a place that Mzee used to frequent many years back, we found out that the restaurant was no longer there. In its place, there was a large building belonging to a Safari company. As we were waiting there wondering what to do, I saw a man, desperation writ on his face, most of his shirt buttons undone running towards us, as fast as his legs could carry him. There was another man running after him a few feet away and shouting 'Mwizi, Mwizi'. He was gesticulating towards us and I thought he wanted us to do something. I realised at once that something was amiss, but I had no idea what 'Mwizi' meant. I looked at Mzee and MM and they were just standing and staring, just like me. The man running in the front looked at us to see if we were going to react and then he was past us in a flash. Another guy crossing the road tried to trip him with his leg but the guy stumbled a bit and kept running. He suddenly changed directions and tried running into an alley close by. I just needed to confirm my suspicions and I asked MM if Mwizi meant thief and he nodded. The thief was eventually caught in the alley but we could not see him as he was surrounded by people. Next I saw a man running barefoot towards the crowd carring a large vicious looking knife with serrated edges in his hand. He was already holding it tight with his fist, tip pointing downwards, the way you would hold it if you were going to stab someone. We walked away and soon there were a bunch of people on motorcycles honking and going towards the crowd. The honking was quite disturbing. As if someone had just won a football game. Mzee said that if the thief was lucky, the police would arrive soon. Otherwise he was a dead man for sure. MM asked me if I had noticed that the man who was carrying the knife was running barefoot although he was quite well-dressed. I nodded. MM thought that the man must have been so angry and desperate to get at the thief that he must not even had time to put on his shoes. That night I went to bed hoping that the police had arrived soon or atleast that the thief's death was quick.
Serengeti was bad for my wife's vehicle partly because of the road and partly because of the hidden speedbumps all across Tanzania's highways. There were speedbumps at the most unexpected and unwanted places and sometimes without any signs. And in many places where there were signs for speedbumps, there were none. The very sharp speedbumps were definitely designed by a sadistic mind or by someone who gets a commission from all the car repair shops in Tanzania. Thankfully it did not cost a lot to fix the car and that ended our very very memorable Serengeti trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment